00:06A4-year-old Korean climate tech startup just turned 200 million won, about $150,000,
00:13into a projected $7.8 billion won, or $5.9 million, in revenue next year,
00:20a near 40-fold jump that just landed at a strategic investment from GS Global.
00:26China's DeepSeq released a new model that now tops the world's open-source coding leaderboards,
00:31charging just $0.60 per million tokens.
00:34The same AI agent toolkit used to breach 16 Korean financial institutions
00:39is coming back as a paid product called RedAgent.ai.
00:43Starting next year, every listed company in Korea, not just the big ones,
00:47will have to disclose its cybersecurity spending, though small businesses get until 2029.
00:53And Korean beauty brand APR just hit the number one toner spot on Amazon UK,
00:59with quadruple-digit sales growth in Britain this year.
01:02It's Wednesday, October 21st.
01:05Let's look at what this means for startups and entrepreneurs in Korea.
01:09Korea's startup landscape is showing two very different faces this week,
01:13explosive growth stories in climate tech and consumer brands,
01:17and a regulatory and security reckoning catching up with AI tools.
01:22GS Global's bet on carbon credit startup Woosh Partners shows large corporates are now funding
01:27climate tech scale-ups directly, not just running their own sustainability programs.
01:32Meanwhile, the same open-source AI agent framework blamed for a bank data breach
01:37is about to be sold commercially, right as new disclosure rules tighten the screws on corporate cybersecurity.
01:43Here's what the numbers show.
01:45Woosh Partners' revenue is set to grow nearly 40-fold between 2024 and 2026,
01:51reaching $7.8 billion with $3.3 billion, or about $2.5 million in net income.
01:58GS Global took a direct equity stake in the four-year-old firm to combine its trading network
02:04with Woosh's carbon credit methodology business.
02:07DeepSeq's new V4.1 flash model beat both open and closed rivals,
02:12including Kimi K3 and GPT-6 Astra, on web development coding benchmarks.
02:18The model charges $0.60 per million output tokens during off-peak hours,
02:23roughly $1.42 of Claude Opus 5's price.
02:26The Artex penetration testing tool, already linked to breaches at 16 Korean financial institutions
02:32and roughly 80 Japanese institutions, is relaunching as the commercial RedAgent.ai platform.
02:40Korea's cabinet-approved rules extending mandatory cybersecurity disclosure
02:44to every listed company and public institution starting next year,
02:48with small businesses exempted until January 2029.
02:52So what does this mean for founders and investors building in Korea?
02:56Earlier, we said a climate-tech startup just turned a 40-fold revenue jump into a corporate investment.
03:01Here's what that actually means for you.
03:04Strategic capital from Korea's trading houses is becoming a real funding channel
03:09for climate and carbon-focused startups, not just VCs.
03:13But if your product touches AI agents or security tooling, budget for compliance now,
03:19disclosure rules are widening just as the same open-source tools get weaponized and commercialized,
03:25whether GS Global expands its carbon credit partnership into additional sustainability ventures,
03:31redagent.ai's upcoming preview launch and how it handles the security concerns tied to Artex's origins,
03:38how smaller listed companies prepare for the 2029 cybersecurity disclosure deadline.
03:44That's today's AI Prism Founders.
03:47This episode was produced with AI assistance based on Seoul Economic Daily reporting
03:52and reviewed by a human editor.
03:55AI Prism is a WANIFRA award-winning series.
03:58We'll be back tomorrow.
04:00You've been listening to AI Prism from Seoul Economic Daily.
04:06You've been listening to AI Prism from Seoul Economic Daily.
